April 15th

Videogames: where frustration and inconvenience can be enjoyable. This week’s roundup features writing on the design and portrayal of economic systems, emotional loops, and physical structures for human bodies.

Fathers

First, this week brought us three pieces about dad games, children, and conservative fantasies.

“the ideological preoccupations of the far right are intertwined with the values of our white supremacist, male dominated and heterosexual family unit focused western social mores. As such these things inevitably find expression in our media output”

Far Cry 5

The latest Far Cry game continues to provoke discussion; this week, people picked up on its facile fantasies and easy wins.

“the game was supposed to be about how “human social savagery is more disturbing than the simple savagery of teeth and claws.” To facilitate this, Far Cry 2 is built with systems that intersect to inconvenience the player a great deal and make combat messy.”

Hurdles

Continuing a theme from Heather Alexandra’s piece above, these two pieces look at how limitations to player action or knowledge enrich stories and experiences.